Inflatable structure for covering sport utility vehicles, boats and the like

ABSTRACT

A pneumatically inflatable structure including two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes mounted at their ends to a base wherein each of the two pairs of tubes form a frame defining a downwardly concave substantially domed enclosure, and a further vault-forming bowed pneumatic tube mounted to the base so as to be substantially vertical and sandwiched between adjacent ends of the two adjacent pairs of tubes. The two adjacent pairs of tubes and the vault-forming tube define an elongate open enclosure including the substantially domed enclosures and an inter-connected vaulted passage-way.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/900,104 filed Feb. 8, 2007 entitled Inflatable Structure for Covering Sport Utility Vehicles, Boats and the Like.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to the field of inflatable structures including tents, and in particular to an inflatable structure useful as an event venue, portable temporary shelter, or for covering from the elements mid-to-large sized vehicles including sport utility vehicles, boats, cars and the like.

BACKGROUND

Inflatable tents for use in camping are known in the prior art and are sold commercially by for example Airzone Recreation Products of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Such tents typically replicate camping tents available commercially which rely on bent fibreglass poles for their support structure and instead substitute inflatable poles which, when bent, provide the supporting framework for the exterior fabric skin or canopy of the tent over which a so-called fly sheet may be mounted. In the other extreme, large tents are known in the prior art for use such as by the military for providing field barracks, field hospitals and various depot facilities, such tents often being made of canvas and supported on tubular metal-pole supporting structures.

Applicant believes that a commercial need exists for relatively large pneumatically inflatable tent-like structures which are larger than conventional recreational camping tents and smaller than military-style field tents. It is believed that such structures will find commercial acceptance and use by the owners of large for example sport utility vehicles, boats, trailers, and other wheeled vehicles or towables which ordinarily would require a large garage or shed for their safe storage and which are often not housed in, for example, conventional residential homes as not having extended garage facilities. Also applicant believes that commercial acceptance and use of such larger pneumatically inflatable tent-like structures may include those in the field of portable corporate sponsorship pavilions for example for use in trade-shows, portable pneumatically inflatable recreational and professional sports shelters for sheltering equipment, non-engaged players, or sickly or wounded players on for example the side-lines of a sports field.

What is required, and is an object of the present invention to provide, is a relatively larger pneumatically inflatable structure which may be readily transportable in that, when collapsed, the structure is not exceedingly heavy or overly bulky so the structure may be transported in for example the aforementioned sport utility vehicles, in mini-vans, or in the beds of pickup trucks and the like, and for example may be carried by two adult males to a convenient location for their use, and wherein the structure may be erected using for example a high volume, low pressure air compressor running for example from the twelve volt power source of the vehicle used to transport the collapsed structure.

In the prior art applicant is aware of the following issued patents illustrating aspects of the state of the art in pneumatically erectable structures including tents:

U.S. Pat. No. 2,591,829 which issued April 1952 to Katzenmeyer et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 2,830,606 which issued April 1958 to Daugherty; U.S. Pat. No. 3,145,719 which issued August 1964 to Johnson; U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,853 which issued August 1975 to Wertman; U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,333 which issued December 1976 to Amarantos; U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,418 which issued January 1978 to Masse; U.S. Pat. No. 4,197,681 which issued April 1980 to Holcombe; U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,642 which issued June 1981 to Karr; U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,718 which issued December 1987 to Nichols; U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,918 which issued August 1988 to Odekirk; U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,389 which issued April 1989 to Kihn; U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,892 which issued May 1989 to Norman; U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,829 which issued October 1989 to Mattick; U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,481 which issued February 1990 to Seeley, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,877 which issued April 1990 to Dutka; U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,322 which issued April 1991 to Mattick et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,212 which issued April 1991 to Fritts et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,400 which issued June 1992 to Stewart; U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,086 which issued April 1993 to Heim; U.S. Pat. No. 5247768 which issued September 1993 to Russo; U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,128 which issued June 1995 to Shapless et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,544 which issued November 1996 to Hale et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,478 which issued June 1997 to Chen; U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,822 which issued November 1999 to McNiff et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,982 which issued January 2000 to Strevey; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,617 which issued July 2001 to Turcot.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In keeping with the above-stated object, and in keeping with the various other objects of the present invention, in one aspect, the inflatable structure according to the present invention provides for not only efficiency in transportation and efficiency in pneumatically inflating of the supporting frame work, but also efficiency in manufacturing in that the inflatable structure according to the present invention may be modularly constructed as better described below.

In summary, the pneumatically inflatable structure according to the present invention may be characterized in one aspect as including two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes mounted at their ends to a base wherein each of the two pairs of tubes form a frame defining a downwardly concave substantially domed enclosure, and a further vault-forming bowed pneumatic tube mounted to the base so as to be substantially vertical and sandwiched between adjacent ends of the two adjacent pairs of tubes. The two adjacent pairs of tubes and the vault-forming tube define an elongate open enclosure including the substantially domed enclosures and an inter-connected vaulted passage-way.

In one embodiment, at least one end of the elongate open enclosure defines a doorway whereby an elongate wheeled vehicle or elongate towable wheeled device may be driven or otherwise translated into and parked along the interior of the open enclosure.

A pair of substantially domed canopies are mountable or mounted to the two adjacent pairs of tubes so as to substantially cover the pair of substantially domed enclosures, and a passageway canopy is mounted to the pair of substantially domed canopies so as to substantially cover the vaulted passageway. The combined canopy including the domed canopies and passageway canopy cover the elongate open enclosure.

A canopy doorway may be formed in the combined canopy to provide access into the elongate open enclosure. A door may be mounted to the canopy adjacent the doorway for selectively releasably closing the doorway.

The base may be a substantially planar sheet, for example rigid for a more permanent structure, or flexible for a more temporary and portable structure, or may merely be sections or segments, rigid or flexible, each individually affixed or mountable to the ground to secure the ends of the tubes by the hinged flaps 27. As illustrated, the sheet is continuous so as to cover substantially entirely all of a floor of the elongate open enclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is, in a right hand front corner elevation view, the pneumatically inflatable structure according to one embodiment of the present invention with the canopy removed and housing a boat on a trailer.

FIG. 2 is, in front-right perspective view, the inflatable structure of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is, in front-left perspective view, the inflatable structure of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is the view of the inflatable structure of FIG. 1 with the boat and trailer removed.

FIG. 5 is the view of the inflatable structure of FIG. 3 with the structure shown in dotted outline and a canopy mounted on the structure.

FIG. 6 is the view of FIG. 5 showing the canopy alone.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

As seen in the accompanying FIGS. 1-4 wherein similar characters of reference denote corresponding parts in each view, the pneumatically inflatable structure according to one aspect of the present invention includes two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes 12 and 14 mounted to a base 16 so as to sandwich a vertically upstanding bowed vault-forming pneumatic tube 18 therebetween. In one embodiment of the invention, pairs of tubes 12 and 14 are substantially identical and are mounted adjacent one another separated only by the diameter of the ends 18 a and 18 b of tube 18.

In particular, a pair of tubes 12 may include tubes 20 and 22 criss-crossed at a vertex 24. They are mounted at vertex 24 in fluid communication with one another by a cooperating hollow flexible conduit 26. The ends 20 a and 22 a of tubes 20 and 22 respectively are mounted on a common side 16 a of base 16 for example by the use of flexible folded tabs 27 formed at the end of each of the tubes. The opposite ends of tubes 20 and 22, namely ends 20 b and 22 b respectively are mounted by tabs 27 to a common edge 16 b of base 16 opposite to edge 16 a. The opposite ends 18 a and 18 b of tube 18 are mounted adjacent ends 20 a and 22 b respectively on a first side of tube 18, and are mounted adjacent ends 28 a and 30 b respectively on the opposite immediately adjacent side of tube 18. Thus ends 28 a and 30 b of tubes 28 and 30 respectively which form the criss-crossed pair of tubes of pair 14, are also mounted to edges 16 a and 16 b of base 16 respectively. The opposite ends of tubes 28 and 30 namely ends 28 b and 30 a are mounted to the corners of base 16, on the comers adjacent end edge 16 d. Ends 22 a and 20 b are mounted on the corners of base 16 adjacent end edge 16 c.

Each of the pairs of tubes 12 and 14 are bowed and criss-crossed so as to form a frame defining a downwardly concave substantially domed enclosure 32 and 34 respectively. Vault-forming bowed pneumatic tube 18 is bowed so as to be also downwardly concave defining an opening underneath tube 18 which is at least as big in its lateral and height dimensions as the corresponding dimensions of domed enclosures 32 and 34. Thus taken in combination the two adjacent pairs of tubes 12 and 14 and the vault-forming tube 18 define an elongate open enclosure elongate along longitudinal axis A. That is, the elongate open enclosure includes the two domed enclosures 32 and 34 and an inter-connected vaulted passageway 36 extending therebetween.

For an efficient and modular use of more conventional components such as the tents taught in my U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,617 and incorporated herein by reference, in one aspect of the present invention two such inflatable tents are used to form pairs of tubes 12 and 14, each being mounted on common base 16. Base 16 may be a rectangular flexible sheet. Where pairs of tubes 12 and 14 are employed modularly and each already has a floor mounted to the ends of the pairs of tubes, in a further embodiment of the present invention, a separate spanning, joining or linking section of base 16 is employed to join the adjacent sides of the conventional tent floors and so as to sandwich therebetween vault-forming tube 18 mounted with its ends on the connecting piece of base 16. As may be understood then, it is not necessary that the inflatable structure according to the present invention merely and only is limited to two pairs of tubes 12 and 14 and a single vault-forming tube 18 as it will be understood that a further elongated enclosure may be constructed using three or more pairs of criss-crossed bowed inflatable tubes similar to pairs 12 or 14, and wherein adjacent pairs of tubes each have bowed vault-forming tubes such as tube 18 interleaved therebetween.

In a preferred embodiment, each of the tubes of the criss-crossed pairs of tubes 12 and 14 and vault-forming tube 18 is of a design such as taught in my U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,617 such that a resilient or at least flexible inner tube is mounted within an outer flexible relatively non-resilient sleeve, and wherein such a sleeve has a folded seam along its interior circumference folded over so that the sleeve and inner tube may be constructed as a linear pole which may then be bent to accommodate the required bowed shaped to form the domed structures. It has been found that such inflatable tubes for example having approximately a five inch diameter which is constant along the length of each tube may be inflated to approximately ten pounds per square inch (psi) and thereby provide sufficient rigidity for an inflatable structure which may then house wheeled vehicles or towable trailers such as the trailer and boat combination illustrated in FIG. 1 which is not intended to be limiting.

Thus in one embodiment, the height from base 16 to the vertex of vault-forming pole 18 may be approximately eight feet and the distance between the opposite ends of the pole are approximately thirteen feet, vault-forming tube thus being approximately twenty-four-twenty-six feet long depending on the desired curvature and amount of bow.

The vault-forming pneumatic tube 18 in one embodiment not intended to be limiting is approximately twenty-four feet long and has a substantially constant circumference along its length of approximately twenty-two inches. In that embodiment the distance between opposite ends 18 a and 18 b of vault-forming pneumatic tube 18 measured across base 16, that is from edge 16 a to edge 16 b, is approximately thirteen feet. Advantageously, the elongate open enclosure may be approximately twenty feet long using tubes 20, 22, 28 and 30 each having a length of also approximately twenty-four feet and a circumference of approximately twenty-two inches. In this embodiment of the structure the height of the elongate open enclosure under the vault-forming pneumatic tube may be approximately eight feet.

An array of interconnected tubes 38 stemming from a common manifold 40 may be used to simultaneously inflate all of the tubes, where for example separate air lines 38 are mounted in fluid communication with adjacent ends of tubes 18, 20 and 28, and a single source (note shown) of pressurized air is mounted to manifold 40.

As will be apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the foregoing disclosure, many alterations and modifications are possible in the practice of this invention without departing from the spirit or scope thereof. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is to be construed in accordance with the substance defined by the following claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A pneumatically inflatable structure comprising: two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes mounted at their ends to a base wherein each pair of said two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes form a frame defining a downwardly concave substantially domed enclosure, and wherein a further vault-forming bowed pneumatic tube is mounted to said base so as to be substantially vertical and sandwiched between adjacent ends of said two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes, wherein said two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes and said vault-forming pneumatic tube define an elongate open enclosure comprising said substantially domed enclosures and an inter-connected vaulted passage-way, and wherein at least one end of said elongate open enclosure defines a doorway whereby an elongate wheeled vehicle or elongate towable wheeled device may be driven or translated into and parked along the interior of said open enclosure.
 2. The structure of claim 1 further comprising a pair of substantially domed canopies mounted to said two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes so as to substantially cover said pair of substantially domed enclosures, and a passageway canopy mounted to said pair of substantially domed canopies to substantially cover said vaulted passageway whereby said elongate open enclosure is substantially covered, and wherein said doorway is open to provide access into said elongate open enclosure.
 3. The structure of claim 2 further comprising a door mounted to said canopy adjacent said doorway for selectively releasably closing said doorway.
 4. The structure of claim 3 wherein said vault-forming pneumatic tube is approximately twenty-four feet long and has a substantially constant circumference along its length of approximately twenty-two inches.
 5. The structure of claim 4 wherein the distance between opposite ends of said vault-forming pneumatic tube measured across said base is approximately thirteen feet.
 6. The structure of claim 5 wherein said elongate open enclosure is approximately twenty feet long.
 7. The structure of claim 6 wherein the height of said elongate open enclosure under said vault-forming pneumatic tube is approximately eight feet.
 8. The structure of claim 1 wherein said base is a substantially planar sheet.
 9. The structure of claim 8 wherein said sheet is continuous so as to cover substantially entirely all of a floor of said elongate open enclosure. 